Category: Life

What’s a writing blog without a boring account of the blogger’s life and thoughts about marriage, children, and cats?

Life, Scifi, Writing (Published)

Published in Texas’s Emerging Writers

Posted on by Desmond White

Half-a-year ago, I was contacted by Z Publishing about contributing to their “Emerging Writers” series. Having launched a successful run of “Emerging Poets,” the publishing house was seeking to publish new writers from every state in what they called a “sampler platter.”

I was ecstatic. I penned a flurry of fiction and plagued critique groups for several months. There were no specifications on genre, so my pieces were strange and speculative. One was about monks hunting a bear in an underworld library and another was about a man buying terraforming equipment.

Z selected “House Divided” from my slush of submissions. The story is about a recent divorcee ruminating on her home, which, instead of being given to her or her ex-husband, has been split interdimensionally between them. In essence, her husband has become her ghost, a reminder of a life lost to the vibrations and footsteps emitting from her walls.

texas emerging authorsSo here we are—with my plug. There are two anthologies from Texas. Mine’s the tree behind bluebonnet, a hazy sun on the horizon, pink-gray clouds smearing the sky. I’d be honored if you purchased a copy.

Life, Writing (Published)

Published — “Boar Song”

Posted on by Desmond White

My poem, “Boar Song” published in Ink & Voices, an online publication devoted to “unapologetic expression, unedited art.” The magazine seeks to provide a space for “humanness” and has a predilection for the “honest, raw, and original.” Meanwhile, my poem, about my wife who turns goblinesque when I tickle her, was an attempt to express my adoration without praise-filled language.

I couldn’t have found a better venue.

EDIT: Or could I? As of 2019, the website seems to have disappeared. Ah, the fickleness of internet-based publications. The editors sent me a screenshot, however, as some form of compensation. Here it is. Proof that this piece was published once.

Life

Someone’s tumblr

Posted on by Desmond White

Well didn’t I pick the perfect brand for my blog?

(Hint: sarcasm stirred with a dash of self-defeat and a weird smell, probably cheese coming off my beard.)

I chose Desmond, Write to be a call-to-the-craft, a personal reminder to “write already” or “go blog you dumb fart.” It helped that my slogan rhymed with my name: “Where Desmond White goes to Write.”

The problem? I’m not the only one to use desmondwrite.

Turns out, someone else has. Had? Did. Because today I found this on tumblr. Don’t want to click a mysterious link? Here’s a screenshot:desmondwritetumblrDiscovering my double has been an unsettling experience, a William Wilson of sorts, especially since this double is dedicated to a fandom I’ve evaded like ebola (averted like avian flu? bypassed like bronchitis? dodged like diphtheria? sidestepped like syphilis?). Which means for three years anyone curious as to whether I had a tumblr probably thought this was mine—this, a blog that begins its introduction with “Hello everypony.” If they were confused, if they thought I was joshing, they could check the bio where stands a blue pony in-miniature, a nag who’s probably named Crystalwit or Dusky Snufflebuns Jr.

Well. At least this writer has a better demographic than my blog of blah, specifically the multitude of My Little Pony fans. The site is clear about its intention to “entertain everypony” but unclear as to how—whatever the blogger intended was going to “involve literature,” maybe even “random things.” Unfortunately, the site appears abandoned, so we’ll never know. But what this tumblr lacks in prose, what it lacks in promise, it makes up for in permanence, because the thing has been sitting webside since 2015 without anything but an introduction—it persists.

Just to be clear. There’s no affiliation between my site and theirs. This blog has been up for longer and has more content. But I don’t want bad (sparkly) blood between us. Des, good luck, bro(ny). After all, as the subtitle of a popular horse-related franchise goes, friendship is magic.

Fantasy, Life, Writing (Published)

Published — “Like Flies, Like Lights”

Posted on by Desmond White

This isn’t my publication, but my wife’s. “Life Flies, Like Lights,” which published in Nowhere.Ink, is a dreamy spelunk into a maze of madness or what might be the halls of the dead. I have no idea, actually, but it’s still freaky, especially the line “All around me are sounds like suppressed laughter in mausoleums, like bouts of applause, like flies on a cat corpse in summer.”

Anyway, I’m so proud of J. Motoki and the products of her horrifying brain.

Nowhere.Ink is a digital collaborative devoted to dark minds and cooperation over competition. Its members have several outlets. Polished pieces go in their Library (like my wife’s) while anyone can post prose or poetry to the Facebook page. Then there’s other worlds like Twitter and their Red Light District.

Actually, my wife and I have a little history with the collab. We, along with its creators, used to post to a literature platform called Prose.

That site went south, forgetting its manners and indulging in toxic utilitarianism. Lost were Partners and $100 weekly contests; found were advertisements, random rules, and Prose Gold, a pay-to-be-a-partner subscription service. Suddenly good writing wasn’t based on its popularity but how much you could pay.

There was also a (now-infamous) Simon and Schuster challenge where fifty stories were picked from 500+ entries and submitted to S&S for review. Some of the entries “selected” were written by the Prose judges themselves, a little bit of unethical behavior that did not go unnoticed. (My piece, Iron Abbie, was also chosen, and I add that only to establish that I’m not bitter for losing.)

The first generation who’d given Prose its style split away. Luckily, Tony Cavanagh and Amanda Cary, two brilliant contributors to Prose, gave some direction to the Great Migration. They created an alternate platform, a place devoted to the exercise and excitement of writing. Funny enough, the “nowhere” in Nowhere.Ink comes from Tony’s old Prose handle—Miles Nowhere.

Life, Writing Process

Comicpalooza 2018 — Writing Unforgettable Characters

Posted on by Desmond White

I went to a literature panel entitled “Writing Unforgettable Characters” featuring Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam, Joe Lansdale, Carrie Patel, and Bev Vincent.

Well, Joe Lansdale kind of took over the Q&A in the best way possible. The others had some insights, but Joe exuded this pragmatic writing presence. A manuscript messiah miasma. Predatory parable pheromones.

A few of his best points:

  • The writer gives 50% of the story. The reader brings in the rest.
  • Some think character is giving someone a cane or an eye patch. That if they’re from Mars or were raised by Indians, they’re interesting. Don’t confuse oddity for character. When writing character, you need to think of motive. Why they do stuff. There’s Surface Motive. What they tell themselves is their Motive. And True Motive.
  • Characters must intrigue. They don’t have to be likable, just interesting.
  • When writing, there has to be music in the prose. Otherwise you’re just lining up turd after turd. Hemingway had a masculine poetry. Fitzgerald had a magical poetry. Learn how to combine rhythm, style, and character into the poetry of prose.
Life

Improv

Posted on by Desmond White

I coach two high school Improv Teams down here in Sugar Land, Texas. We only go to one tournament—MIST at the University of Houston, which occurs in the Spring. Well, we’ve had a bit of a winning streak. This marks the third year in a row the boy’s have won first place. Girl’s won first last year. This year there was some infighting and drama, and we lost a few members, but the girl’s pulled through and won 2nd. I’m proud as a parent.

Fantasy, Life, Scifi, Writing (Published)

Published — “And We Who Never Died” & “Scarabaeidae”

Posted on by Desmond White

My pieces “And We Who Never Died” and “Scarabaeidae” were published in the Spring Issue of The Tishman Review, a well-respected quarterly magazine devoted to prose, poetry, and people. Behind the paper’s philosophy is the idea that literature’s “value to humanity is beyond measure.” Editors must “remain open to the possibility that an individual work may take us beyond the boundaries known today.”

“And We Who Never Died” began as a metaphysical conflict. What if when we die, our souls don’t abide the afterlife, or face annihilation, but transfer to the objects around us? What horrors would arise? What fears? The story—about a mother sending her children to search the house for their dead father—is one of many scenarios that might result.

“Scarabaeidae” is an ode to my wife, to us. I try to write without goo, mush, doggerel, singsong, cockamamie, and all those wonderful descriptors of poor poetry. But then, “Scarabaeidae” does have a line that begins with “shall I compare thee to.” Maybe it works since it ends in “a dung beetle.” Glimpsed here is the failure and mundanity of the struggle to love another.

You can pick up a copy of The Tishman Review from their website or order it from the source on Amazon.

Life, Writing Process

Writ in Water Issue #2

Posted on by Desmond White

Today, I swung by HBU’s Author Celebration to pick up Issue #2 of Writ in Water.

(I’m the dude in the earflaps)

Writ in Water is the student literary magazine that I launched last year and subsequently passed on to Seth Grant (the lad to the left) when I graduated.

And Seth has done a remarkable job. Issue #2 is beautiful; the cover and interior as remarkable as the prose and poetry inside.

And speaking of remarkable prose, one of my pieces ‘somehow’ made it into the final print.

According to an editorial note, this year’s theme was “Community,” which comes from two Latin words that denote a group coming together in “oneness.”

Seth adds: “The pieces published here do not paint a picture of a perfect world because the world we live in is not perfect. It is not sanitized nor masked with false optimism. Life – yes, even the Christian life – is a struggle.”

Per tradition, Seth will graduate this spring and pass on the editor-in-chief position to the next aspiring bad ass.

Fantasy, Life

ZeroFlash — “There Would be Warmth”

Posted on by Desmond White

Zeroflash, a flash fiction magazine that features many, many great interviews with writers and publishers alike, has a monthly competition series. The winner receives an original illustration of their winning entry, ten pounds, an interview with Uprising Review, etc., etc.

I submitted a story to the February competition (judged by Alex L. Williams) and lost. My story didn’t even make it to second or third. It wasn’t featured on the list of honorees.

S’all good, though. Rejection is a step toward success. Sometimes rejection’s a success all by its lonesome. And if that’s even remotely true, I’ve made it.

The February prompt was this draconic kaleidoscope with granite blues and pinks and a hidden zero. And it was the caption: “I’m asking for the trippiest, freakiest, most surreal piece of prose you can concoct. Let your mind roam and your words dance.” 300 words minimum.

by Jon Stubbington (2018)

So here’s my loser’s piece. I went for Paracelsus meets the goblins in Twilight Eyes meets skin made out of asbestos. You be the judge if it works or not.

There Would be Warmth

by Desmond White

Now the mediæval men knew a thing about doomsday. They scribbled its steps in codices long-brown, although none of them were excited about cityside basilisks and resurrected gods, content with pulling gold from menstrual blood. Not me. All my years I burned to clear the crust of life from this planet. (Humans, dogs, the yellow cities, trees, all that color.) So I studied the works recounting the Vulcani, those lizards that grow in fire like fishes in water, what some call salamanders. If you grow them big enough they’ll survive outside their element—bigger and they’ll turn the elements into char.

I get a fire going until the flicker-roots are blue and the smoke thick enough to climb, then I step between logs glimmering like sticks in a stomach. The lizards see me and run and die in the cold, so maybe, I think, I must accustom the new hatches to my scent. The eggs are easy. I find a clump of black logs glowing with a thousand eyes and there I find them, small, angry. I raise one to see if the fetus is kicking in the ash, but I take the egg too close to the air element, or maybe wind blows out of jealousy, and the egg turns to coal in my boiled fingers. The fire is kind enough to lift my tears. The next egg I push down my throat, placing it by the heat of my liver, wrapped motherly in blood-web, and now I’m running out the tipi, running for the lake to wash the blackened scale of my skin, to feel the living stone inside my belly, to finish what the mystics never started.